I'm wondering if anyone has made a dipstick marking off the litres of water in the 20l BM, if so, would you share the measurements that you have with me? Also, the marking rings on the center rod, what volumes do they indicate? I saw a nice drawing here for the 50L, but I've not found anything specific to the 20l. Maybe I"m just missing it.

i don't have access at the moment, but the three stripes on the center post are exactly 15, 20, 25L. as measured carefully by me and other skeptics... measure the distance between two of them. it scales linearly. (ie. divide by 5 and that's your 1L dipstick interval)

dinnerstick wrote:i don't have access at the moment, but the three stripes on the center post are exactly 15, 20, 25L. as measured carefully by me and other skeptics... measure the distance between two of them. it scales linearly. (ie. divide by 5 and that's your 1L dipstick interval)

Hi all,I did my first brew yesterday arvo after spending the morning measuring and remeasuring my new BM 20. I got the same results twice, but they seemed really odd. I will measure again before next brewday to see if they correlate. I measured on my flat garage floor and weighed in the water using a digital scale. The markings were taken using a ruler held vertical against the heating element in front of the side weld.My results (in mm):1L= 112L= 233L= 344L= 445L= 546L= 667L= 72 (i assume this number is slightly less due to the element/tap filling but not really sure)8L= 88 9L= 9810L= 10911L= 11912L= 129 The 4th line is between 12-13L13L= 13914L= 14915L= 159 The 3rd line is between 15-16L16L= 16917L= 17918L= 18919L= 204 (same result on 2 measurements - not sure why as there is no reason for why it is different)20L= 214 The 2nd line is between 20-21L21L= 22422L= 23423L= 24424L= 25425L= 265 The 1st line is between 25-26L. I added 0.5L to my 25L measurement and it came exactly to the top line = 25.5L26L= 27827L= 28828L= 29829L= 30830L= 318

The fact the numbers weren't uniform did my head in - why i measured twice. In the end I took papazian's advice and relaxed and had a homebrew... then just put on a brew.

Can anyone else have a look at their dipstick to see if they correlate with my figures?

we5ty wrote:Hi all,I did my first brew yesterday arvo after spending the morning measuring and remeasuring my new BM 20. I got the same results twice, but they seemed really odd. I will measure again before next brewday to see if they correlate. I measured on my flat garage floor and weighed in the water using a digital scale. The markings were taken using a ruler held vertical against the heating element in front of the side weld.My results (in mm):1L= 112L= 233L= 344L= 445L= 546L= 667L= 72 (i assume this number is slightly less due to the element/tap filling but not really sure)8L= 88 9L= 9810L= 10911L= 11912L= 129 The 4th line is between 12-13L13L= 13914L= 14915L= 159 The 3rd line is between 15-16L16L= 16917L= 17918L= 18919L= 204 (same result on 2 measurements - not sure why as there is no reason for why it is different)20L= 214 The 2nd line is between 20-21L21L= 22422L= 23423L= 24424L= 25425L= 265 The 1st line is between 25-26L. I added 0.5L to my 25L measurement and it came exactly to the top line = 25.5L26L= 27827L= 28828L= 29829L= 30830L= 318

The fact the numbers weren't uniform did my head in - why i measured twice. In the end I took papazian's advice and relaxed and had a homebrew... then just put on a brew.

Can anyone else have a look at their dipstick to see if they correlate with my figures?

I made a dipstick with stainless threaded rod and set pairs of nuts at the appropriate heights by weighing water in. I always start with 23l so weigh it in every time, only takes a few minutes and if you use Beersmith or similar software you know what quantities to add for sparge, and top-up.

I found that the volume varies as the temp increases and to correctly work out the volume by weight the water has to be at 4C for a correct starting volume (ie 1 litre = 1kg @ 4C)So instead I worked out the volumes by using the formula for volumes ( can't type it properly here but is PixRxRxD)This gave me a height of 10.5mm per litre and marked a metal rule accordinglydid not go to the trouble of calculating fixtures in the BM and assumed that the amount of water in the pump and pipework would be approximately the same as that displaced by the elements and centre rod etc and the small curves in the corner of the base I figure that's exact enough for me